Site of 1976 "Atomic Man" Accident To Be Cleaned 299
mdsolar writes with news about the cleanup of the site that exposed Harold McCluskey to the highest dose of radiation from americium ever recorded. Workers are finally preparing to enter one of the most dangerous rooms in the world — the site of a 1976 blast in the United States that exposed a technician to a massive dose of radiation and led to his nickname: the "Atomic Man." Harold McCluskey, then 64, was working in the room at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation when a chemical reaction caused a glass glove box to explode. He was exposed to the highest dose of radiation from the chemical element americium ever recorded — 500 times the occupational standard. Hanford, located in central Washington state, made plutonium for nuclear weapons for decades. The room was used to recover radioactive americium, a byproduct of plutonium. Covered with blood, McCluskey was dragged from the room and put into an ambulance headed for the decontamination center. Because he was too hot to handle, he was removed by remote control and transported to a steel-and-concrete isolation tank. During the next five months, doctors laboriously extracted tiny bits of glass and razor-sharp pieces of metal embedded in his skin. Nurses scrubbed him down three times a day and shaved every inch of his body every day. The radioactive bathwater and thousands of towels became nuclear waste.
Re:Faith in God (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing ignorant people fear more than science in general is "radiation". The reasons for the quotation marks would make for a very long rant about ionizing vs. non-ionizing radiation and their complete ignorance of what is actually going on.
Re:Faith in God (Score:5, Insightful)
Typically they pray to god for healing, then see a doctor and take medical treatment, then thank god when they get better. The order of the first two steps varies. A few will skip the doctor part and either heal spontaneously (praise the lord!) or die, but most are quite happy to live with the contradiction.
Safety margins (Score:5, Insightful)
The important thing to remember here is that he survived 500 times the maximum dose a worker can be legally exposed to.
Try that with any chemical in any chemical plant.
Re:Safety margins (Score:5, Insightful)
The important thing to remember here is that he survived 500 times the maximum dose a worker can be legally exposed to. Try that with any chemical in any chemical plant.
I wouldn't try it for just any chemical; but occupational exposure limits tend to be set (often with the aid of generous quantities of guesswork) around chronic occupational exposure and with the objective of not killing, or crippling too seriously, too high a percentage of the workforce. Asking "What can they breath all shift every shift for years or more without too many of them dropping dead, getting some freaky obscure cancer, or having the liver function of an elderly alcoholic before age 50?" tends to lead to lower, sometimes dramatically lower, numbers than "What can you probably survive, with intensive treatment and ongoing health effects?"
Re:Faith in God (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does every discussion of anything nuclear related almost immediately turn into a straw man argument against some imaginary, fearful hoards of idiots? Why are do so insecure about it?
Re:Faith in God (Score:5, Insightful)
Your comment reminds me of the saying "God heals, and the doctor sends the bill".
Yes, modern medicine is great, but after a while you realize that doctors are shooting in the dark half the time.
Re:Faith in God (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be an impressive miracle indeed, aside from the bit about having an immune system and mitosis-capable cells. Life is actually pretty good at fixing itsself without supernatural aid. It seems suspicious that God is so eager to heal infections, yet never helps out any amputees.
Re:Faith (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether you think its Intentional or not, you can always count on mdsolar to submit anything he can find that says nuclear and there is something bad that happened.
Re:Faith in God (Score:5, Insightful)
In fairness, I know scientists who are religious and believe in evolution and all the rest of the science, and see God as being outside of all of that, and see the Bible as being allegorical on the points which conflict with science.
Religion isn't always tied with being irrational like the crazies we sometimes see.
Hell, when I went to university there was still a Jesuit teaching physics. He saw no conflict whatsoever between science and religion.
I'm certainly not saying there aren't those who are a little overzealous in their interpretations, but there are many many people who aren't.
Re:Faith in God (Score:5, Insightful)
What, wasn't their faith in god strong enough? It works wonders for children without vaccinations...
In some cases, even religious people will trust science ... (though not enough if other persons are affected)
Seriously, have we gotten to the point that we're actually bigoted against all religions?
73% of Americans believe in God: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/1... [pewforum.org]
41% trust scientists, with another 46% trusting them "Somewhat" http://www.asanet.org/images/j... [asanet.org]
73% believe in God, 87% trust scientists at least "somewhat" so, at the very least, 60% of people believe on God AND trust science at the same time! That's assuming there is no overlap.
If you disparage someone for their religious beliefs, you are a bigot. Seriously, you really are. It's not some different thing, you can't cite the crusades as evidence of how evil modern Christians are, you can't point to wars in the middle east. None of that has anything to do with the little old lady down the street that goes to church. You're making an offensive, and more importantly, incorrect generalization about an entire group of people based on the actions of a very small minority that has nothing to do with them at all.
I know this will get modded down pretty quickly on Slashdot. This site is notoriously intolerant of the faithful, but that doesn't make it right. Have fun modding me down troll, just keep in mind you're doing it for the same reasons sectarian bigotry happens all over the world. No one thinks they're a bigot while they're being a bigot. And if you're teaching your kids this mentality at home? Shame on you.
Re:Faith in God (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm saying the older you get the more scary shit about this you likely remember.
At just over 40 you sure as hell don't remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, but you knew it happened and that everybody was talking like they'd be setting them off.
But anybody 40 or over lived through at least a period in which the likelihood of a nuclear war seemed like a very real possibility, and the older you get the more you remember.
And NOBODY ever differentiated between types of radiation while they were telling everybody how terrible it was going to be to die from it if we didn't get burned up in the initial blast.
So if you want to know why there's so much fear around radiation, it's because for several decades people lived in fear of dying from it, because people kept threatening to use the damned things.
Re:Faith in God (Score:5, Insightful)
The only religious people I know of that have their beliefs disparaged are those who wish to impose those beliefs on others through the force of law.
You don't like gay marriage? Don't get gay married. Don't like abortions? Don't get one. Fully fund pre AND post natal care. Provide free contraception. Stop trying to force a reading from certain religious to start every government open meeting. Stop trying to keep people from buying alcohol on Sundays. The list goes on and on.
Its ok to hold beliefs those things above are bad or immoral. Don't get the government to enforce your morals on others.
Re:Faith in God (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder if you removed the word religious from that sentence above if it still holds true? "If you disparage someone for their beliefs, you are a bigot." What makes religious beliefs so much different than any other kind of belief that it deserves this kind of protection? It seems that whenever anyone complains about the attacks on religious beliefs what they are really saying is that "If you disparage MY religious beliefs, you are a bigot." But if you want to give Mormons, or Christian Scientists, or Rastafarians a hard time, by all means.
Re:Faith in God (Score:5, Insightful)
Wisdom, if you can handle it. Cognitive dissonance, if you can't.